Federal Reserve Economic Data

Net worth is the difference between total assets and liabilities. Tracking changes in the distribution of net worth can provide insight into how individual economic groups are faring, at least compared with each other.

Our FRED graph above uses Board of Governors financial accounts data from third quarter 1989 to first quarter 2025 to track five percentile groups of US households:

• Top 0.1%
• Top 1%
• 90th to 99th percentiles
• 50th to 90th percentiles
• 1st to 50th percentiles

For most of the time, the 90th to 99th percentile group (pink line) has had the largest share of overall net worth. Much of the time it’s closely followed by the 50th to 90th percentile group (green line).

In 2003, the shares of these two groups began to diverge and the gap between them began to widen.

Right before and throughout the pandemic, however, that gap markedly shrank: The share of the 90th to 99th percentile group decreased as the share of the 50th to 90th percentile group increased, shown by the convergence of the green line and the pink line.

The difference in aggregate wealth between these groups was 11.4 percentage points in 2019:Q2. In 2022:Q3, that difference fell to nearly 5 percentage points, the lowest it’s been since 2006.

Some background

It’s possible that changes in spending behaviors and income set off by COVID-19 contributed to a smaller gap between the 90th to 99th percentile group and the next 40 percentiles.

In their FEDS Notes article, Michael Batty, Ella Deeken, and Alice Henriques Volz report that a rebound in the stock market combined with increases in pension entitlements drove up assets for the 50th to 90th percentile group.

Our FRED graph below shows the difference in the share of wealth between the 90th to 99th percentile group and the 50th to 90th percentile group. Although the gap fell somewhat drastically from 2019 to 2022, it has risen in recent years, indicating that lower inequality between these groups might be short-lived.

How these graphs were created: Search FRED for “share of net worth” and select the first series labeled by percentile. Use the “Add line” tab to search for and select the other four percentile groups. For the second graph, select the 90th to 99th net worth percentile series. Use the “Customize Data” tab to search for and add the 50th to 90th group. Type a-b in the formula field.

Suggested by Anna Cole and Michael McCracken.

Consumer price indices are supposed to cover everything that households buy. That includes “administratively set prices” for various fees and taxes. Postal services is one example.

Our FRED graph above shows postal services price indexes for a few European countries. These prices typically change infrequently; thus, their evolution often looks like a step function. (This step pattern can also occur for some product categories that aren’t sampled every month, such as housing rents.)

There’s also some indication these price have changed more frequently recently. This may have to do with the “technological” innovation in some countries of labeling stamps as a service instead of a value, which makes it easier to change the price. (Read more about this menu-cost theory of price stickiness.)

Our second FRED graph, above, provides some local color: In the Netherlands and Latvia, letter postage is lower in December to encourage people to write to family and friends for the holidays. There are even special December stamps that are valid only from mid-November to early January.

Our third FRED graph, above, explores the interesting case of Denmark. The Danes have highly advanced digital communications and send few physical letters anymore. Their postage prices (solid blue line) have increased much more than their general level of prices (dashed green line). It now costs 29 Danish kroner ($4.56) to mail a domestic letter, and the Danish postal service will stop delivering letters at the end of 2025.

Then there’s the case of Turkey, shown in our final FRED graph below. They’ve had an even speedier increase in postal prices, but it’s largely due to overall inflation.

How these graphs were created: Search FRED for and select the “postal Spain” price index. From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Add Line” tab to search for and select the “postal Greece” and “postal France” series. From the “Format” tab, change the line patterns to make the separate steps more apparent. Use a similar process for the other graphs.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

In a previous FRED blog post, we discussed the Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) released by the FOMC this past June. In this blog post, we will again use ALFRED to compare the latest projections released in September 2025 with several of the recent projections for the following variables:

• the unemployment rate
• core PCEPI inflation
• real GDP growth
• the federal funds rate

It’s important to note that these projections represent neither a committee plan nor a decision on future policy.

The first ALFRED graph, above, shows the unemployment rate projections for the fourth quarters of 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028 according to the four most recent SEPs. Every September the FOMC adds another year to the projections. Most recently, as shown by the gold bar, the median FOMC participant projects that the unemployment rate will average 4.5% in Q4 2025 with a drop to 4.3% by 2027. This is slightly below the projection provided in June. The median projection for the unemployment rate in 2028 is 4.2%.

The second graph shows the core inflation rate projections for the same years. The median FOMC participant projects 3.1% inflation over 2025, with a return to the FOMC target of 2.0% by 2028.

The third graph, below, shows the median projections for real GDP growth. Growth projections for 2025 have been revised downward since December 2024, from 2.1% to 1.6%, but are above June’s projection of 1.4%. The projections for real GDP growth in 2026 and 2027 are slightly higher than they were in June, revised upward from 1.6% to 1.8% and 1.8% to 1.9%, respectively. The longer-run projection for 2028 is 1.8%.

Our final graph below shows the median participant’s projections of the federal funds rate. The most recent projections for the fourth quarter of 2025 are lower than their June 2025 values: from 3.9% down to 3.6%. But they are similar to the March and December projections for 2026 and 2027, at 3.4% and 3.1%. June’s projections were slightly raised for 2026 and 2027, at 3.6% and 3.4%. The federal funds rate is projected to remain at 3.1% in 2028. It is worth noting, though, that focusing on the median federal funds rate projection does obscure some of the dispersion of the individual participant projections. For example, projections for the year-end policy rate range from 2.6% to 3.9%.

How these graphs were created: Search ALFRED for “FOMC unemployment” and take the median projection. Click on “Edit Graph,” choose a bar graph, and add three bars with the same series again. Finally, select the proper vintage for each bar. For the other three graphs, proceed similarly with “FOMC Consumption,” “FOMC Growth,” and “FOMC Fed Funds Rate.”

Suggested by John Fuller and Charles Gascon.